On Equestrienne Elsie St. Leon

Elsie St. Leon (1884-1976) was one of the pre-eminent equestriennes of her day, a star of both circus and vaudeville. A third generation member of an Australian circus dynasty formed in the 1850s, she arrived in the U.S. in the 1890s with her parents and siblings. Elsie started off performing as a juggler at age seven, and later worked as an aerialist and rider with her family for Ringling Bros and Sells-Forepaugh in the early years of the 20th century. It was said that Elsie was the only woman who could turn a somersault unattended whilst riding a horse bareback. Her horse was named “Swipe”. She and her family had a cameo in the 1913 film The Whimsical Threads of Destiny essentially playing themselves as circus riders.

While Elsie and her sister Vera were sometimes billed as the St. Leon Sisters, they are not to be confused with another pair of performing St. Leon Sisters, Elsie and Maude, dancers and comediennes on the New York stage in the 1860s.

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Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. He has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, which has presented hundreds of top variety acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Lady Rizo to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces in NYC since 1989 at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre and the Brick. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit I’ll Say She Is, the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival. He is perhaps best known for his 2005 book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, recently cited by Bette Midler in People magazine as one of her favorite book. More about All Things Trav S.D. are at: http://travsd.com/
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